The thing is this character needs a lot of mods. She needs skill levels like any sorc. She needs defense, and damage reduction. She needs high block. She needs... let's just say this is one of my biggest challenges. If I make this design work well then I really am good at what I do.

I am hearing all advice.

I need to know about Damage Reduction. Isn't there a capped %?

Aside from that, I need to figure out how I can get 40+ skills, 12k+ defense (with armors on, mind you, I'm managing that right now, with the stuff Im merely experimenting with), a decent level of damage reduction and block...

The character's form of damage is the retaliation of armors.

They put those synergies in like that, didn't they? To max out any of the three armors, you gotta max out all three, plus mastery to reach it's fullest potential. So what is it's use? I have got to find one.

Playing around on single with a version of the character who had hacked items, it made it clear to me a few key things.

1: Some monsters can't be damaged by this build. Insert merc.
2: Both ranged attackers and melee attackers can be stricken with cold damage for daring to attack me.

I'll have cold covered, and my merc will do physical damage, and wear Infinity. I think giving him Holy Freeze may be redundant, as I'm pretty much icing things down with my masochistic combat style. I was thinking defiance instead.

I have some things to figure out, such as, if a monster swings and misses due to defense, does he/she still get hit. I know that they do if I block.

Any advice or input is appreciated, other than stating the obvious, i.e. "You're wierd", "This build sucks", "You're dumb for trying this," stuff like that. :}<

Not to flame...but I just can't see how this build can do any damage...at all...if it can, then post the damage it will do...? You can't even buff up your merc with it. But iono, try testing it or something...

and saying you played with hacked items...even on SP wont get you very far here :lipsrsealed:

Not to flame...but I just can't see how this build can do any damage...at all...if it can, then post the damage it will do...? You can't even buff up your merc with it. But iono, try testing it or something...

and saying you played with hacked items...even on SP wont get you very far here :lipsrsealed:

Click to expand...

I do not touch hacked items on the realms. I don't break the rules. I only toyed with a few a while back on single player, not even in hosted games. It was just to get a clear sense of where the damage was going.

I remind you, SP is nothing to me but a testing ground for me to perfect my realms characters, and I refuse to cheat on realms. (I never touched whites or hexes).

As for doing damage, yes, I do damage, even in hell. I've played around a bit, and I've gotten to where I can go into, say, hell worldstone, and I can deliver damage. It's a bit slow, and I wish there was a better source of health than to chug potions. I may switch my merc to Prayer.

Far more viable than a thorns paladin. I deal about 1500 cold damage on retaliation to all attacks, hit, miss, or blocked.

The conviction does help, because the cold armors hit for cold damage, no?

Every sorc I make has a point in static. Unfortunately just one click in orb probably would be weak in hell and it would also defeat the purpose of the build. Having seen how and where the damage applies through my testing (see previous post) I can tell when I'm doing damage pretty easily.

This build dressed right is utterly brilliant when surrounded by many many little things, like fetishes. ^.^

I didn't realize that Frozen required that I was actually stricken. I think a little less of it, but it isn't anything but a synergy boost in this build anyways.

My style requires that I 'target' monsters in one of two ways.

1) Target all melee monsters aggro'd on me, by using Shiver.

2) Target all ranged monsters aggro'd on me, by using Chilling.

This requires a lot of hotkey back-n-forth, I can't damage both of these catagories at the same time, but with maxed C.Mastery and good skills +, anything that isn't CI takes noticable damage. Most monsters seem to take between 1/2 to 1/4 of their total health for each time they attack me.

I've noticed Chilling is weaker... which is annoying.

Also, this noteworthy, if you are surrounded by melee and ranged monsters, and have Chilling on, you'll riposte the ranged attacks, but the retalitory bolt will strike the monsters in the path of flight instead of the intended target... so when surrounded by both kinds, just use Shiver...

P.S. It's good to see I'm not the only player of D2 in the entire world who is nutty enough to try this build. ^.^;;

I may not be breaking many immunes but I do feel the Infinity helps increase overall damage.

Test Drive:

I just did a hell baal run. I found that souls were nasty, so if you get one of those horrible clusters of 40 or so souls, it might be a good idea to have a few Wisps to swap. Other than that, I found it hilarious to see 20 or so soulkillers (fetishes) run up to me and all die in one or two swings, before my merc could even get to them.

Colenzo was easy. Achmel was the hardest. He killed my merc, but then again, with 100000000000000 poison damage, he is the official designed merc killer. >.>; Bartuc wasn't that hard, if a little slow. I find that if you position yourself in a line with hydras directly between you and your target, you will pummel them with Chilling Armor bolts. The venom lord guy was easy, if a bit slow. They seemed to want to just spew fire, well, I could target that, but then they'd swing their wierd square swords at me, so may as well stick to Shiver, it's a bit stronger.

Lister was the easiest. I kept his attacks blocked and let his minions swing at me to their hearts' content. They all went down fairly fast.

Baal was a pain. It appeared that when he hit me with hoarfrost he was hit with multiple Chilling bolts, but I can't be sure. He just got annoying because he totally removes all viability of ES from your strategy, so I had to chug alot of potions. I've battled him for far longer, though, so I feel I've succeeded with this build.

Frostburn, when you're of the right level, try out the things I am using, gear, etc. Don't despair on the character. it works out nicely when finally equipped well. (I have one on realms who is about 60ish and she does terribly.)

Personally... I'd drop a lot of that Cold Mastery (maybe 1-10 hard points, depending on how many +skills I could land) and make an ES sork. Makes a lot more sense, since you're going to be getting hit, to worry a bit more about survivability.

If you can get a slvl 35 Energy Shield (should be very achievable, giving the type of gear you're talking about here), along with 50 PDR/MDR (this'll take a bit more work, but is also very doable), you'll be able to entirely negate all hits dealing 500 damage or less. A slvl 40 ES with 25 PDR/MDR will do exactly the same thing, but will require focusing more on +Lit Skills instead of +All Skills. The nicest part is that, once you've got the DR rig up, you don't have to worry about +life or +skills anymore.

Torch, Anni, Arachnid's, 2x SoJ, and a +8 ES "Memory" runeword will get you to slvl 35 all by their lonesome. +2 Sorc skills on your helm, Ammy, and a +9 ES "Memory" will get you all the way to 40. After that, just wear a Gladiator's Bane and get a little bit extra PDR/MDR from somewhere (5-10 more points of each- hint: try safety crafts) and you're free to stand around in the middle of mobs of attackers without worrying about your little red orb. Glad's also has a very nice defense score for your Cold Armors to boost, and the CBF is also always welcome.

Fathom ---Beast on switch adds Big Life with Stormshield for DR
Mara
Nightwing
Spirit
Snowclash (will provide me with blizzard and save points) -This is so key for lving this char. It saves you 2 skills points and gives you a real way to attack in PVM. Even through Hell in single player it's usable if not fast. For dueling switch it out for Verdungo or Thundergods or whatever you need if you are going to be in bear mode.
2 soj's -Only use one with a Raven.
Frostburns
Silkweaves
Enigma -All the way so that you can tele as a bear
torch
anni
4 cold CG
res charms
life mana charms

I built mine as a PVP not a PVM build. IN Bear you'll have over 1000 life and 1500 mana with no CTA. The point of the build is to kill by being swung at. The DR helps with phyiscal as does the ES. The bear will help you're life get boosted so that even if ES shorts out you're still ok and it does recover fast. The bear also gives you a melee attack if you want to since only your CM and LM will take hits (5 points each). Or switch back to keep them boosted and just stand there

I've killed a few pallies who can't figure out how. I also got royally smoked by a few in 1 hit before I was all decked out. This is really an all or nothing build. But it does freak people out and is kinda fun for the WOW factor of it. BTW it is very good against ranged attackers. Just keep teleing and letting the CA do the work.

p.s. CM only 1 point is needed. It's better to put the rest into ES and Telekinsis. You + skills and merc infinity will boost CM plenty.